Army Col. Ryan Workman, outgoing garrison commander, left; Brenda McCullough, director of Installation Management Command-Pacific, center; and Army Col. Kristin Steinbrecher, incoming garrison commander, stand at attention at Camp Humphreys, South Korea, July 11, 2025. (David Choi/Stars and Stripes)
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — A longtime air-defense officer took command of the largest U.S. military base overseas during a ceremony Friday on this installation 40 miles south of Seoul.
Army Col. Ryan Workman, the outgoing Humphreys commander, transferred his duties to Col. Kristin Steinbrecher, who previously led the Air and Missile Defense Test Directorate at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Humphreys, a sprawling 3,500-acre compound, is the headquarters of U.S. Forces Korea, U.N. Command, Combined Forces Command, Eighth Army and 2nd Infantry Division. Approximately 40,000 U.S. and South Korean personnel occupy the base daily.
Workman took command of Humphreys on July 11, 2023. He will remain here as the next Eighth Army inspector general.
As garrison commander, Workman oversaw the completion of several construction projects, including a $64 million barracks for 600 soldiers and three family housing towers that cost $141 million.
He also supervised efforts to accommodate 750 Boy Scouts who pulled out of the 25th World Scout Jamboree in Saemangeum, about 85 miles south of Humphreys, during an intense heat wave in August 2023.
The Boy Scouts camped inside the Humphreys Middle School gym for a week starting Aug. 6, 2023, while Eighth Army soldiers provided meals.
At the command changeover, Eighth Army acting commander Brig. Gen. Sean Crockett thanked Workman for “accomplishing these missions without fail.”
“I thank you for your leadership,” he told a crowd of 250 people inside the base’s Morning Calm Center. “You set the pace and example for transformation across the peninsula while here.”
Workman thanked soldiers, civilian contractors and local employees for ensuring base services were operational under his watch.
“I’m often the face of the organization, but I don’t actually do anything,” he told the crowd. “Everything that we’ve accomplished … that’s all really what you have all accomplished.”
Army Col. Kristin Steinbrecher speaks during her change-of-command ceremony at Camp Humphreys, South Korea, July 11, 2025. (David Choi/Stars and Stripes)
Steinbrecher said she would continue building on Workman’s efforts and vowed to “work relentlessly” to ensure garrison troops are able to accomplish their mission.
“It is a deep honor and privilege to stand before you today and assume the duties as your garrison commander,” she told the crowd. “I am humbled by the trust placed in me to lead this remarkable team.”
Steinbrecher graduated in 2002 from Rutgers University, where she was commissioned through ROTC, according to her Army biography.
Her previous assignments include theater security cooperation planner in Djibouti,; commander of Headquarters and Headquarters Battery of the 6th Air Defense Artillery Brigade; plans and exercise director at Joint Task Force-Bravo in Honduras; and military advisor for the State Department in Washington, D.C.
